According to Menendez, the North Pole may be reduced to open waterways by melting ice as soon as 2012, leaving him to ask of Santa, “What will happen to your house, your workshop, the elves’ houses and your reindeer barns?”

Menendez is a supporter of granting the Environmental Protection Agency and its chief, Lisa Jackson – who also hails from New Jersey, having previously been the head of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection – the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, fearing the gas contributes to global climate change.

“I’m supportive of the EPA power, and I think we have the votes to sustain it,” New Jersey’s Star-Ledger reports Menendez affirming, “but it will be close.”

“Scientists overwhelmingly agree that polar ice is melting because of greenhouse gas pollution,” Menendez asserts in his letter to Santa, “and I am working hard to reduce these emissions. But there is probably nothing we can do in time to save the North Pole.”

As for the soon-to-be homeless Santa – if Menendez’s predictions of massive ice melts come true – the senator proposes a solution to the jolly ol’ elf:

“I want you to know that if you want to relocate to the beautiful state of New Jersey, I would be proud to assist you,” Menendez writes.

He concludes in his letter to Santa, “Please know that I will work to mobilize the U.S. federal government to assist when you relocate. I am sure we can both agree that on a warming planet, we need to do all we can to save Christmas.”